Good job picking up that Frithia pulchra! They've been showing up recently for the first time in my area. I bought all 4 the first week, then all 4 the second week, (I always get multiples for seed production) so now I have 8 and mine are flowering too. The flowers are taking a long time to open so be patient. Yes, they have similar care to Lithops and other Mesembs but they seem to like to stay moist, being from the grasslands. Also, they seem to prefer more shade than other Mesembs. Some sun won't hurt but I would give it the same amount of light as you would a Haworthia or Gasteraloe, limited sun, bright indirect light. Keep it from turning pink. If the leaves feel soft to the touch, it needs a little drink but don't soak it, just a sip. The condition you describe of your Gasteraloe sounds like it had too much sun, dried out, maybe the roots had died off. You seem to have revived it nicely so just keep doing what you're doing. Some plants have an actual dormant period and some just grow better at certain times of year. I personally only change up my routine for Haworthias, Aeoniums and Mesembs. Everything else does fine with regular watering year-round. Eventually, you'll learn to read the plants and react accordingly instead of following set rules.

Thanks for the informative post mountainman. I knew that some open eye figs needed to be pollinated and other do not. I did not know that pollinating them could cause the pulp to change color. As for the poetry, I have written lots of poetry some better and some worse than the one above. Though I have never written a poem about figs before today. I just wanted express my love for figs and my unknown Keepers. I would not trade them for any other named fig. For now they are but a sweet mystery to be savored again and again. Till the Fall season over takes them and they sleep as though dead till Spring returns them to me once again. Enough now of poetry as this is not a poetry forum.lol

Wetsuitor: The only ones I dug up this year were 4 washies and a sago palm, each of which would take considerable protection here including heat. I will be leaving those in when they get 2 big to handle, but the washies seem to take root distubance very well and overwinter well indoors. There is of course some set back and it is slow to get growing in the spring, however I'm not ready to get into an elaborate heating system yet. I'm trying to work out my kinks this year on a trachy. Plus my wife would kill me if I had Jim's setup! I live in maybe the coldest winter 6a in America. This will be my 3rd winter here, the lowest low each of the past 2 years is -2, and -8F, HOWEVER, it is the norm to go 3 weeks at a time never getting above freezing. Last December and January, we had 9 days that got above freezing during the day, and most of those were in the 33-38F range for highs. We also had 2 3-weeks seesions of consecutive below freezing weather. The other problem is that I generally don't see grass from Dec.1 to mid-March, it never gets warm enough to ever melt the snow. Last year I lost 2 decent sized trachies and a sabal palmetto, and my minors and needle that survived received considerable damage, the minors burned 98%, the only things left were the emerging spears. Needle had spear pull with surving pups. That was with frost cloth wrapped unheated leaf cages, which provided 0-30% damage and no losses the year before.

Okay, you can all come down for margaritas on the screen porch! The house is in RI and it's about 1-1/2 hours from our primary house. We had another house in the same area for about 4-5 years and then sold it and bought this one 3 years ago. We are very fortunate because we have a big yard (lots of wiffle ball games) and we're about 4 blocks from the beach. And now, we have water views from almost every window! Previously, the second floor was really tiny and the windows were small so you hardly knew we were near the water. Thanks for all the kind words! I really have to pinch myself because I never thought we'd have anything like this.